Acer goes ultra-thin with its Predator Triton 700 gaming laptop, but can it usurp Razer’s dominance?

Rejoice! Gaming laptops are getting slimmer. There once was a time when you’d pull your back out moving your laptop from one desk to another, but that time is no more. Razer may well have had this mantra for some time, but Acer now has its ultraslim Predator Triton 700 gaming notebook, and it produces some stiff competition.

Now, this is no Predator 21X. It’s not packing dual 1080 graphics, nor does it have a curved 21in monitor, and it certainly doesn’t weigh 9kg. Oh, and it doesn’t quite cost $9,000 to buy one, either. This is slim, lightweight and extraordinarily well built, and it doesn’t scrimp when it comes to performance, either.

Acer Predator Triton 700 review: Price, specs and release date

Acer Predator Triton 700

Processor

Intel Core i7-7700HQ / Intel Core i5-7300HQ

Graphics

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

RAM

16GB

Storage

Up to 512GB SSD

Display

15.6in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS

Dimensions

393 x 263 x 18.9mm

Weight

2.6Kg

Release date

August 2017

Price

£3,400

In short, Acer’s Predator Triton 700 is monstrously expensive, but you’re paying for slimness. Its internals are at the tippy-top end of the list, with the option to upgrade to 32GB of DDR4 RAM, too. This’ll be a beast when it comes to raw gaming power, without sacrificing portability.

Its competition, then? Well, Razer’s the obvious one with its recent Kaby Lake-powered Blade refresh. Like its Acer equivalent, it’s super slim and packs a punch, but you can pick one up from just £1,750. I say just, but it’s still almost half the price.

As is always the case at these demo events, my time with the Predator Triton 700 was very limited. I didn’t get to run our usual suite of benchmarks, or gawk at the display long enough to form any critical judgement, but I did at least give the keyboard a whirl, the touchpad a quick swipe and managed to pick the thing up for a brief second.

And that brings us to its best feature. The Predator Triton 700 is seriously lightweight at just 2.6kg. That may not be quite as easy on the arms as, say, Razer’s Blade, but it’s still a significant improvement on Acer’s 4kg Predator 17 from last year.

How does it achieve this lightweight wizardry? Well, for starters it comes packing Nvidia’s latest and greatest – its 10 series GTX graphics cards. They’re small enough to cram in any slim chassis, sacrificing little in terms of performance over its full-sized alternatives. It’s also got two of Acer’s second-gen Aeroblade cooling fans inside, too. They’re ridiculously slim, while still keeping heat levels to a minimum.

As for ports, there’s a little flap on one side with a USB 2.0 port underneath, along with three standard USB 3.0 ports and a solitary USB Type-C port around the edge. Oh, and one of these ports will almost always be used up by an external USB mouse. Here’s why.

The trackpad isn’t below the keyboard. Gasp! The keyboard sits at the bottom, while the touchpad is positioned directly under that 15.6in screen. The thing is – and you might think otherwise – this isn’t so much of a strange move after all. It’s a gaming laptop, and you’ll likely resort to an external mouse 90% of the time anyway.

Acer Predator Triton 700 review: Early verdict

First impressions of Acer’s Triton 700 are positive. It may be absurdly pricey, but it comes packing the latest and greatest internals, and it may well be the best-looking device I’ve seen thus far this year. But there is a slight catch.

While the touchpad placement may not be as glaringly abysmal as I first thought, it’s still a bizarre move and one that may cause a lot of Acer’s potential customers to flock to its competitors. Pair this with its sky-high price, and Acer’s Predator Triton 700 may be a tricky sell come August.

Stay tuned for my full Acer Predator Triton 700 review in the very near future.